Meals that fed the globe’s heroes: Tuck into a breakfast that helped change the world

Meals that fed some of history’s greatest heroes have been collected in a book (Picture: File/Alamy)

You may never be responsible for saving the world or even changing it – but now you can share a breakfast with those who did.

Meals that fed some of history’s greatest heroes have been collected in a book to raise money for children in the poorest parts of Africa.

Researchers at charity Send A Cow looked at famous people, including Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and the first men on the Moon, to find what set them up on the morning of their greatest achievements.

They found that, while Gandhi got by on a breakfast of porridge, cocoa and goat’s milk, Charles Darwin preferred a low-carb dish of pigeon breasts and eggs.

Einstein was happy enough with two fried eggs, while Thomas Edison tucked into apple dumplings.

Even in zero gravity you need to watch your weight, and the crew of Apollo 11 dined on bacon squares, ‘sugar cookie cubes’ and dehydrated peaches.

Churchill won the war on poached eggs, cold meat, and bread and jam. Other famous breakfasts include Florence Nightingale’s spicy kedgeree and Nelson Mandela’s umphokoqo, a mixture of maize, water and salt.

Send A Cow hopes to raise £500,000 from The Most Important Meals of their Lives, which can be downloaded from its website.

Its chief executive, Simon Barnes, said: ‘With the opportunity to eat a breakfast, children in the poorest parts of Africa will have the nutrients they need to go to school and concentrate on their lessons.’